shays01

What has happened in the past is never done with ... we live with the repercussions of past decisions all the time. No, instead it is more useful to say that we learn from the past. We learn how to mistrust those who try to sell us a bag of goods and no longer blindly accept their assertions. We learn to deeply question the sincerity and the credibility of elected officials who on a daily basis openly avow their absolute disdain for democracy and democratic processes (just yesterday, for example, when informed that fully 2/3 of the American people want to end our occupation of Iraq, the Vice President said, "So?"). And we learn that the best way to undo a mistake is to go back to the beginning and start over.

This means we must end our occupation of Iraq (necessitated, of course, by our illegal and preemptive invasion of a country that had done nothing more to us than insult the power of our leaders). We cannot, of course, just walk away from the mess that we have created ... and while it would be nice to place accountability and responsibility for paying for repairing that mess squarely on the shoulders of the people who made the decision to put us there, we must recognize that we ... as a people ... were stupid enough to let this gang of wild cowboys steal not one, but two elections. So how do we resolve this seemingly impossible quandary (end the occupation, but pay for the mess)?

Simple. There are two simultaneous things we must do:
(1) There is no "UN agreement" about what a country must do after it has invaded another country and destroyed it. However, we are members of the United Nations. Like a spoiled little brat (which he is), when the President could not convince the UN (and the rest of the world) to buy into his shoddy little lies, he decided that we were morally superior enough to go it alone! Well, now he is going to have to swallow his pride and go back to the UN, hat in hands, and ask that it assume control of the reconstruction of Iraq. While our troops, under UN command, should play some role in the security mission, it would be best if they were not there at all. So, instead of supplying the troops, we instead pay for the UN mission.

(2) Paying for the cost of the UN mission, and paying for the things we broke (or our presence contributing to the breakage) is a huge obligation, but one we must fulfill if we are to maintain any honor in this debacle. But how can we pay? ... we are broke ourselves, the dollar is essentially worthless and we cannot afford to pay for the oil we gained control of by invading Iraq. Simple ... we not only reinstate the taxes that this President wiped off the books, but we raise the rate of those who have profited most from this war by an amount that is equal to what they would have paid since the tax cuts went into effect. We call it a "War Surcharge", and we finally make the American people feel some of the true costs of waging this war (not that the families of the 4,000 dead and 40,000 wounded haven't already felt a dear price).

If in an era of the not-so distant past American governments (local and state) could tear up rail lines to build a street and highway infrastructure for the automobile, perhaps in this era we can tear up the streets and rebuild the rail lines for a transport system that doesn't use petroleum. Small electric shuttles (powered by a number of sources) could move people from terminals to their final destination. And, if we hearken back to a day when the name Disney represented fanciful visions of the future rather than control and consolidation of information access, we can easily see the advantages of clustered industrial and business parks mixed with housing parks.
Scott Hays, Oregon City

Here's something Barack Obama might do (courtesy of Thom Hartman): Use images of Sarah Palin and slabs of pork mixed with lists of the documented pork barrel contributions she has solicited and/or accepted; add photos or live-action shots of pigs (with lipstick) and the phrase, "Meet the Queen of Pork".

I need to know exactly what is going to happen to health care in the next two years ...

I also want to hear more about the proposed "reform" of NCLB ... to just say it needs changing does not provide any details or information. We all know that it needs changing ... but one could propose a change that serves only to change the lipstick on the pig.

Obviously, people take from events the things that reinforce their own beliefs ... I could go through the same historical record as Repwoman and draw completely different conclusions:
(1) Yes, Bill Clinton did not shut down al-Qaida ... but he was a man who may have lied in his private and personal life, but was a man of honor in regards to rule of law; if the Republican Congress would not give him authorization to commit forces to bring Osama bin Laden (et. al.), then he would limit what he did to the powers given him by the Constitution ... unlike the current President who invents powers as he goes along, if he doesn't lie about which ones he has exercised. Republicans, you might recall, not only made it impossible for Bill Clinton to pursue Osama bin Laden, but went to great lengths to mock the efforts he did make (Republicans still refer mockingly about his lobbing of missiles into tents in the desert ... a fine joke back then, since most people's image of a "desert" is an open and barren bit of sand, not the caves and mountains of Afghanistan now etched in our minds).
(2) Unable to capture bin Laden while in office, the Clinton administration left lots of capable people in the transition government who tried giving ample warning to George W. Bush about the impending disaster. We can argue circles around each other about the role of hindsight in seeing clues, or whether there was enough information to take precautionary steps ("Bin Laden set to attack U.S." seems pretty obvious, but hey ...). However, one thing we DO know for sure is that the Bush appointees had absolutely zero respect for Bill Clinton, and were in total lockdown in terms of paying attention to anything he or his people said or did. THAT was the first sign of the reckless arrogance of George W. Bush and the people who surround(ed) him.
(3) We had been attacked. There was, indeed, unanimous support for a war. A war against al-Qaida and, because "you're either for us or against us", also the Taliban who protected them (the Cheney comment is ironic ... please note that his old company, Halliburton, has moved its headquarters to Dubai, one of the primary sources for the funding of the al-Qaida terrorists; please note, too, that the bin Laden family are close personal friends of the Bush family) was unanimously approved. Had we fought that war, George W. Bush might today be viewed as an honorable President: we could have removed the Taliban from power and focused our energies on tracking down and capturing the al-Qaida leadership; provided massive economic and infrastructure aid -- in the form of low-interest loans and technical expertise for THEM to build roads, power generation and distribution lines, water systems, schools, hospitals and the like that hired AFGHANI companies and AFGHANI workers to complete the projects (providing them with an economic base to develop, providing their people with a stake in the infrastructure, as well as well-paying jobs and a higher standard of living, all of which could have been repaid with income from the businesses themselves); and then started in the villages with local rule, undermining the power and authority of the warlords and extending outward to a national system of government that they created for themselves.
But NO! This president decided this was a golden opportunity to use another, nearby spot, as a laboratory for he and his PNAC buddies to experiment with their notions of nation-building, while at the same time securing access to a huge chunk of mideast oil and breaking the monopoly of the OPEC cartel. Much as Henry Kissinger and Milton Friedman used the blank slate of Chile to experiment with Freakonomics (i.e., a corporate state, unchecked by rule of law and traditions of liberty and rights), so did the Neo-conservatives think they could experiment with the blank slate of Iraq -- once Saddam Hussein was removed and we were welcomed as liberators. OOPS!

(4) President Bush was not maligned for "not keeping everyone safe". He was maligned for his massive indifference and ineffectiveness as a leader during a time of crisis. He had hired a Dog Show Manager to head FEMA because if you want to show government doesn't work, one way to do it is to appoint political lackeys without skill or experience to manage the show ... one thing we know for sure -- FEMA under "Brownie" did not work! Mission Accomplished. Oh sure, events have been twisted and interpretted willy-nilly since Katrina ... it was one of those unusual natural disasters for which you can never be totally prepared (which seem to be escalating exponentially, don't you know, as the climate wasn't really changing and there was no human component to it that this President could have begun responding to ... but that is yet another classic failure of this president: to rally the people behind the need to change how business is done, rather than fight it openly). We learned a lot from Katrina, as evidenced by the (so far) highly organized response to Ike ... and while a similar response to Katrina might not have been as successful, it would have been far better than what we witnessed. Instead, when a Category 5 Hurricane was barreling toward the Gulf Coast, the President sent everyone home while he schmoozed out in Arizona (with John McCain) and attended a fund-raiser of powerful business groups in San Diego! How appropriate and fitting, given the overall tenor of his administration.

I will not go any further. However, when a President is as egregiously narrowly focused as this President was ... when he uses the position of his office to advance the interests of friends ... when he shields massively important decisions from the American people (what WAS the energy policy Dick and he hatched in secret, and what effect did that policy -- those commitments, promises and goals -- have on events in Iraq, have on the speculation in oil futures, have on the price of gasoline? ... when he violates the Constitution and spies upon American citizens without due process ... when he secretly puts into motion a clandestine network of black secret prisons to which arbitrarily arrested people are taken and subjected to torture without the right to know the basis of their detention ... when he orders the firing of US Attorneys simply because they place loyalty to the rule of law before Party loyalty ... when he refuses to enforce laws enacted by Congress ...
well, when a President does these things, it is the DUTY of responsible American citizens to stand up and show their children how this country works -- that even a President is subservient to the rule of law, and it is perfectly reasonable to ask questions, demand answers, and expect accountability. That is how I interpret "bashing". It is the type of "bashing" that we citizens must do to every President ... that way, fewer of them will think that they can get away with it.

All children learn differently, and all children learn at a different rate. No one approach of instruction works for every child. For a non-educator, who clearly does no understand this simple dictum, to write a law forcing all children to learn at the same rate (or else) is not the best way to set educational policy. It may make everyone feel good, but it leaves hundreds of children behind.

In this example, Eva, has explained why immersion worked so well for her. She tells us she learned to read at an early age. Just as the research suggests, children who are fluent and literate in their native language learn foreign languages must faster than do children who are not. This is why many schools provide support to children in their native tongue while they learn academic subjects in (science, history, and possibly mathematics). The approach not only supports English-language instruction that takes place throughout most of the day, but also helps minimize how far a child falls behind others of the same age whose native language is English.

Try this on for size. Imagine being dropped, this afternoon, into a high school in Acapulco. You have a textbook in your hands (La Historia de Mexico), written in Spanish. The instructor is telling you everything you need to know for tomorrow's test -- in Spanish. You look around for help from students sitting near you, but all they can do is answer in Spanish, point and gesture, or perhaps use some broken English that doesn't make much sense, either. How do you think you are going to do on that test?

Do you think you will do much better on the Final Exam after you have been here for a year?

William Ayers has never been convicted of a crime. The Weathermen were not "terrorists", though they did use violent means to oppose the illegal war in Vietnam. One of their means of protest was to blow up buildings. No one was in the buildings they blew up (unlike the building that a real terrorist like Timothy McVeigh blew up). They did not kill policemen ... one police officer died in an explosion in San Francisco for which the Weathermen denied responsibility; despite extensive efforts to establish a connection, legal authorities have concluded the Weathermen did NOT plant that bomb.

In the meantime, if you want to play the "guilt-by-association" game, consider some of John McCain's friends:

John McCain is a "good friend" of G. Gordon Liddy, appearing on his radio show as recently as earlier this year. G. Gordon Liddy, you may recall, is a convicted felon who attempted to disrupt the presidential election process back at the same time William Ayers was protesting Vietnam. G. Gordon Liddy has advocated assassinating government officials on his radio program (ATF officers), and explained that the best way to do it is to make a head shot, because they wear body armor! G. Gordon Liddy conspired to assassinate Jack Anderson.

Oliver North is a supporter of John McCain, they are good friends, and graduated from the same class at the Naval Academy (so did ex-felon John Poindexter ... creator of the Total Information Awareness Program that most likely is currently spying on you and all other Americans). Oliver North, of course, is an ex-felon and the chief proponent and theoretically only participant in the Iran-Contra scandal, where American weapons were illegally sold to the Ayatollah (that's Iran, in case you have forgotten), and the proceeds used to support mercenaries and death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua. That some of the proceeds were diverted to cocaine trafficking has also been suggested, though never proven.

Then there's retired Major General John Singlaub, who is another good friend of John McCain. After retiring from a distinguished military career (including being a key participant in the formation of the CIA), Singlaub formed the the US Council for World Freedom (the US branch of the World Anti-Communist League). John McCain served on the governing board of this organization, and his name still appeared on its letterhead as recently as 1990. The CWF acted as a front group for the illegal shipment and sales of arms during Iran-Contra. It was placed on the Anti-Defamation League's Watch list in 1981 as a source-point for extremists, racists, anti-Semites, and ex-Nazis.

Unlike the three previous posters, I shall comment on your blog, Mr. Henderson. Like you, I would like to believe that something resembling integrity still exists in the world of college sports. If it does, it's not the type of story that catches the imagination of the drive-by media, unless it's one of those catch-in-the-throat feel good Rudy-type stories that circulate a few times each year and give us all reason to hope. I've hung around college sports, and college athletes, long enough to know that over generalization about "character" and "integrity" is an easy trap to fall into, so shall attempt to not go down that path. The Heisman should go not only to the best athlete, but also to the one whose character and whose contribution to the sport is unquestionably honorable. But you must remember that even the Heisman, itself, is now tarnished by commercialism, big bucks, media focus and shady characters ... the types who start printing advertisements for their next year's hopefuls even before the final whistle blows on the last season; the types seeking to find and spread dirt on the competition; and the week-by-week hype that begins even during Spring practices. Heck, even the other trophies awarded to college players are starting to attract the same type of media attention and glorification as the Heisman ... it won't be long before each will have its own one-hour television special.

Despite my own warning to myself about generalizing, I cannot help but conclude that ... in general ... the world of college football (and to a growing extent, basketball) is about three things: winning, money, and ego (and the former fans the excesses of the others). Don't get me wrong ... I love college sports, and am one of the few left standing who like it better than practically all professional versions of the same sport (except, perhaps, baseball). But I know that when coaches are earning salaries in the MILLIONS while the kids that play for them get penalized for accepting things like free tatoos, something is rotten in Canton, Ohio. When universities are supposedly raking in millions of dollars on their football programs (though Sports Illustrated recently cast some doubt on that commonly held view), what's in it for the amateur, student athlete?

If we're going to glorify the Heisman to the level we do, while at the same time making college athletics a multi-billion dollar business that goes to practically everyone except the kids giving it value, then I have to wonder just what "integrity" you hope these kids represent.

I have now read through three pages of comments to the original post by Tristan Patton and see a couple of interesting patterns. The Patton's appear to be trying to be respectful while explaining the rigors of cattle ranching in an environment that includes wolves ... they have risen (or is that "sunk") to the bait offered by a couple of folks who have challenged some of their assumptions and arguments, but for the most part have attempted to keep the dialog going. The same cannot be said for practically every other poster who seems to have taken a position opposed to the reintroduction of wolves ... those comments tend to be universally abusive, slanderous, and full of name-calling and invective. On the other side of the coin, those who seem to be arguing for the preservation of wolves in the lower 48 states have presented their opinions in a far less aggressive or confrontational manner ... with a couple of exceptions.

None have been banned (at least, none of which I am aware).

As some have pointed out, preservation of species (not just wolves) is ... or at least, can be ... a controversial topic. Most Americans would be hard-pressed to just come out and say "let's kill everything and anything that gets in our way", and most ... in general ... would agree that protecting the environment and preventing extinction are good things to do. That is, until the discussion becomes specific. Then, even frogs and turtles and ground varmints and teensy-weensy fish can cause certain members of our society to grow red in the face and to start hurling insults at "eco-whackos". Most of those critters, however ... just as endangered, as a species, as are populations of wolves in the United States ... don't raise the hackles and the fighting spirit as do wolves.

So I guess what I'm sayin' is that talking about wolves ... whether you want to eliminate them all (as some to this discussion have suggested), want to eliminate only those actually preying upon livestock, want to protect them all everywhere they exist and might one day exist, want to discuss rationally (or irrationally) the science and/or the facts as proponents sort it out to their own understanding (and personal point of view), or want to have a rational and polite discussion ... you have to expect emotions to run the gamut. It's pretty easy to weed out the comments of those driven only by emotion or by ignorance, even if not as easy to ignore them when they are hurtful and mean, and call them for what they are (even when they agree with what you are trying to say).

So here's my take on the subject. Wolves scare the beejeesus out of people, so people have taken steps to level the playing field wherever they come in contact with them. The fact that they were pretty much eliminated in the United States suggests that superior fire-power and numbers proved too much for the clever, intelligent, predator to overcome. Absence of a large carnivore in the mountainous west created an environment conducive to sports hunting of large herbivores and open-range grazing of cattle (and sheep) on public lands ... agreeable developments for a part of the American population. Reintroduction of the wolf ... in my mind a good thing ... has reinserted some competition for those two segments of society. Reduction of elk and deer herds has meant hunters have to travel further and to more remote areas to find prey ... the animals are not appearing in the same places, at the same time, or for the same amount of time as they did before the the reappearance of wolves. It should be mentioned that grazing patterns on native brush and trees has also been affected by the changing patterns of movement by the elk and deer ... reintroduction of the wolf is acting to restore native vegetation within natural systems.

With respect to the rancher, predation on herds is a significant issue. One would have to be blind as a bat and insensitive as a stone to not recognize this problem. However, if one seeks to graze cattle (or sheep) on public lands, and the public has opted to reintroduce wolves onto public land, then it seems to me that this issue simply becomes one more cost of doing business. I realize that wolves do not respect property lines, and here the problem is a little fuzzier ... people certainly have a right to defend their property from incursions. Still, wolves do not read and the concept of "private" is not in their nature ... shooting them when they cross a line they do not know exists is sort of like shooting a blind man who puts a foot across a line in the street that he cannot see. There must be other solutions. Maybe open-range grazing needs to change, or at least be modified, in areas where wolves roam. Compensation for the loss of cows also seems a reasonable approach. I am more than willing to listen to other proposals, as well.

Wolves are not "noble". Wolves are animals that have an important role to play in natural systems. We have to learn to live a little more responsibly within the natural systems that support our very existence. We can continue to make exceptions (that animal is really that important ... those shrubs don't really make a difference ... that mountain can be leveled without changing too many things ... and so on), and have lots of good reasons for each and every exception, but sooner or later and unless we put an end to our self-centered ways, we will destroy the very thing that gives us sustenance and allows us to survive as a species.

The first requirement for being a True Believer in the Tea Party Mantra (at least as expressed by wsoo) is to surrender scientific literacy and suspend belief in the ability of people ... working together ... to solve problems. We just need, instead, to hand the reins of power over to corporate ceos ... especially those in the dying oil and gas sector ... and trust that they will lead us to continuing access to an everlasting source of energy that doesn't hurt the environment. He recites the mantra of "government by the people and for the people" because he likes the sound of it (I suppose), but then proceeds to describe a government of what's good for corporations is good for people. Laissez-faire capitalism and Social Darwinism gave rise to robber barons, the mass executions of working people, brutal social inequalities, and the deepest divide between extreme wealth and poverty in the history of this country the last time it was tried, culminating in (so far) the worst global economic crisis known to man. He forgets that Trickle Down is just a euphemism for that failed system, and cannot see that it has once again collapsed under its own corrupt weight.

But that's okay. According to wsoo, that's the spirit of our Founding Fathers (and Titus) and he's more than willing to sell his soul to Americans for Prosperity and the co-opted political movement it has spawned.

Let's see. He confuses corporatocracy with socialism. He believes earth exists to serve his needs, but will strip it clean of the very resources he says makes us rich. If we dirty the planet ... that is, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil in which our food grows, and the very food itself ... then that is but a small price to pay for our high standard of living. He clearly confuses "business" with "people", forgetting that when the Founding Fathers got together they feared powerful kings allied with business monopolies, and ALL businesses were run by people who bled red blood and used their own names to take out licenses issued by state agencies ... not by fictionalized legal institutions, corporations or anonymous boards of directors; they placed profit in the context of serving their communities and putting back into the community what they took out ... not in maximizing profit and increasing dividends for investors; the banks from which they secured loans were local banks, holding the deposits of local citizens and never lending more than they could actually cover by deposit ... not by global behemoths that return practically zero interest on deposit and gladly speculate in exotic "investment tools".

And so on. He does have one thing right, though. There are two sides. I am not so sure that the majority of the Tea Party is in agreement with many of the things he has said ... only those that make up its most virulent, extreme right-wing contingent. An awful lot of thoughtful Tea Partyers recognize the danger of corporate control of government (Big Corporations are AT LEAST as dangerous as Big Government ... and far less democratic ... which is why initially they opposed bailing out the banks without accountability and control over them). But there are two sides. Those who are a part of the corporatocracy (including those who apologize for it) and everyone else. Wsoo makes it clear which side he is on.

The problem with your argument is that none of those groups have attempted to do what the Occupy Portland group has done. My guess is that if they camped out and sought to recruit more people who agreed with what they had to say is that they would fail. Miserably. But we do not know that. What we DO know is that you are speculating and showing your opposition to a fundamental right guaranteed by the First Amendment. You may not like what they are saying, but what they are saying (1) makes it possible for neo-Nazis and anti-plastic bag advocates to do the same, and (2) makes it possible for you to write the pap that you have written here.

I'll try again, Mr Aristotle (who seems to like the commons but runs when too many people talk back at you). The banks extracted anywhere from $12 to $16 trillion from the US Treasury to cover their speculative and irresponsible mortgage bundling practices. They should be held responsible for finding and printing the original documents of every single mortgage being foreclosed, but of course, they cannot do that (one of the "reasons" they have used to prolong and procrastinate in fulfilling their moral and legal obligations). So we get HARP, instead. And now, because they utilized the finest legal obfuscations that money can buy, we get an Executive Order that allows strapped homeowners to go to other lending institutions and to secure current interest rates and to forgo excessive delay as they try to refinance their homes and stabilize the housing market.

If you truly believe that ALL people have a right to express their opinion, why are you so upset about a Canadian outfit expressing theirs? You don't have to agree with them, but you can't say so and at the same time belittle their effort to express their opinion. I happen to agree with it. I would make the surtax larger ... we have to force lazy, do-nothing leisure-class investors put their money into useful ventures (e.g., REAL manufacturing efforts located within our borders) instead of throwing it away on speculative money-making gambles. How about taxing capital gains as actual income, with a deduction for actually investing in a domestic factory or business operation?

The list of grievances is a draft. In a democratic process, it can be modified. That's the beauty of the Occupy Movement. Democracy is at its heart. Whatever excuses or apologies or attacks anyone wants to mount against it, they must take that essential fact into consideration.

So far, to the best of my knowledge, no individual and no group has come forward to claim their rights have been abused by those camped downtown. It seems that the City is weighing any such claims as they develop, and is doing so in a pretty fair manner. Yes, the law against camping is being broken. Maybe the law needs revisiting, rather than arbitrary enforcement. Just sayin' ...

I also believe I recall you being a strict constructionist. What part of "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble ..." is not clear to you?

Correction on your correction ... even BEFORE Barack Obama was sworn in as President, the major parties that advertised, promoted and sold "tea party" to the losers of the 2008 election met in Aspen, Colorado to lay the foundations for their one-term strategies that have been unfolding ever since. Dick Armey was at that meeting, and FreedomWorks was born of it. Americans for Prosperity was represented at that meeting. There is no record of whether representatives of Rupert Murdoch were there, but Fox was clearly an early proponent, propagandizer, and promoter of the Tea Party phenomena. Rather than a grass-roots movement, people were invited to attend Tea Party "Anti-tax Protests" by Fox broadcasters, who personally attended and broadcast from selected sites (the ones that drew the biggest crowds, according to the media consultants hired to analyze the polling and market-research data compiled during the weeks of 24-7 promotion). Bus rides were provided (and paid for) by Freedom Works. Those in attendance were universally anti-Obama "losers".

As to their "anti-tax" message, and their Tea Party symbolism: it too was staged and manipulated. The original Boston Tea Party was a protest AGAINST a tax cut given to a transnational corporation (the East India Company) that would effectively give it a monopoly in the Colonies and undercut locally developing businesses. It was a protest aimed at the corrupt and collusive government of King George and his Parliament, almost all of whom owned joint stock in EIC and stood to profit from its monopoly. This is quite the opposite ... in spirit, in fact, and in deed ... of what the Tea Partyers were doing in 2009.

So, misled and manipulated though they were (remember the Republican seniors who had been convinced by the relentless ... and untrue ... propaganda that Obama was somehow going to mess around with their Medicare and showed up to vent their anger at Congressional town hall meetings? ... remember all the susceptible fools who were equally tricked by threats of "death panels"?), the original Tea Partyers were indeed an "anti-tax" crowd. But admit it, the "tax increases" against which they protested (1) had not yet even been proposed ... and to this day have yet to be enacted, and (2) were made to seem like they were going to be massive increases ... in the neighborhood of 50-70% (some still complain that a 70% tax on the wealthy is "unfair") ... when in fact all that had been discussed, and all that is still being discussed, was to let the Bush tax cuts lapse.

As to their anti bail-out, anti-bank original position, even you admit that has been manipulated "by outside influence" to demand cuts to benefits for the lower classes and more or continued tax breaks for the upper ones ... "almost the opposite of the original cause and one that supports the staus quo," as you yourself have said. But please note the last part of your claim. They seek continued tax breaks for the wealthy, which was PRECISELY the cause celebre of the original Anti-Tax Rallies.

I posted about three comments in this thread, yesterday ... but not one of them has shown up. Wow, that was a tremendous waste of effort! I'll try to summarize my comments, but it's awful hard to remember them.

Every working person has an inalienable right to join a union and collectively bargain with their employer for wages and working conditions. That's pretty straight-forward, and something that precludes carving out exceptions. Unless, of course, your aim is to take us back to the future ... back to the 19th century, to be precise. Just because your taxes are used to pay the salaries and benefits of public workers, you do not have the right to dictate how the state negotiates with its workers, or how it manages the services it provides. That's why we have elections, and that's how you exercise your control over those processes. Do you have the right to pass a law making it illegal for the federal government to limit the salaries it pays commissioned officers in the military, or even its enlisted men (or to direct what part of your tax dollars should be spent on military expenditures)? Do you have the right to pass a law making it legal for private clubs to exclude anyone they want from their premises or from membership? Do you have a right to pass a law making it legal for an employer to force children under the age of 16 to work overtime?

Those examples are but a few that I can give of things you cannot do to micromanage how government chooses to expend its revenues, or of rights extended that you cannot now renege on. Of course, reneging on promises seems to be a common and historic character trait of the American people. Our history is littered with broken treaties, broken promises, and broken contracts.

As to the cause of the current fiscal turmoil amongst the states, I think you have it inside out and backwards. EVERY state suffers from the same dislocate between necessary expenditures and needed revenues. It's not because expenditures have increased disproportionately to income, it's because income has DECREASED disproportionately to needed expenditures. Remember, since about 1976, we have been living through an orchestrated effort to reduce the tax liability of the wealthy. Whether in the form of dogmatic property tax "reform" that freezes traditional funding sources for schools and other local services in ways that most benefit the wealthy, in legislative "reforms" that impose super-majorities to change any tax laws, in income tax-rate adjustments that most benefit higher rate-payers, in proposals for regressive flat-tax or use-tax schemes, and in a host of other movements that have preoccupied folks for the last 35 years (who doesn't want "lower taxes"?), revenue streams to keep pace with population change and economic dislocation have declined dramatically. Add to that a recession caused directly by wealthy people with too much spare change to gamble with, which reduces governmental revenues even more, and we have a perfect storm.

But the promises were made. They were negotiated and agreed to in good faith. As a rule, the pensions over which you wail are DEFERRED payments promised in exchange for low wages paid now. If you want to pay all public servants a salary commiserate with what folks in the private sector earn (with equitable background, experience, and training ... not just the "median private sector income" to which you refer), then I might find a hint of interest in your proposal(s). But you don't. You claim public sector workers are already overpaid.

Thanks for the clarification. I hoped you understood that I was amplifying on your comment, not criticizing it. And yes ... those who oppose Wall Street reform, who oppose restoring Clinton-era taxes on the wealthy, who oppose even health insurance reform (let alone health care reform) ... are being manipulated to work against their own best interests. If they would return to their initial anger over bailing out the banks (not the auto companies ... those series of loans actually seemed to have worked to save both GM and Chrysler), then we would find common ground.

Of course, that initial anger was manipulated, as well. Recall. Banks announce that the housing bubble has burst and that a large number of the mortgages they hold are toxic. They're going to go belly up because they can't pay off the paper, and the world's economy is going to crash. Oh my God! Oh my God! Henry Paulson announces ... no, demands ... $700 billion to GIVE to the banksters to keep away the Monster of another Depression. Republicans fall into line. Dems drag their heels ... yes, this is critical and we have to do something, but let's slow down a minute and attach a few strings to this giveaway. There were four or five key "yes, but's" that Dems proposed (I can't remember them all): we'll give you the money, but (1) you can't use it to pay yourselves bonuses or severance pay, (2) you have to use it to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, (3) the money must be repaid, with interest, and (4) you will report to a House oversight committee that will monitor how you use the money. John McCain "suspended" his campaign to attend a series of photo-op meetings showing how serious everyone was taking the discussions. At a now famed gathering of all the principle Congressional and White House players, a "deal" was agreed to in principle until ... bait-and-switch ... Republicans said "no"; they couldn't bail out banks with all those strings attached. Suddenly, Republicans everywhere were opposed to "bail outs", even though it was they who initially proposed them (as long as they did not have strings). Surprise, surprise ... most of the strings disappeared in the original legislation, and it was not until reframed as TARP in the Obama administration did some of them reappear.

Unions are not parasites, but the hard-won right of workers to exert leverage in negotiations with management that they individually do not possess. All workers have the universal right to collectively bargain for their working conditions. Like any democratic institution, there are structural problems with unions that a good shake-up wouldn't hurt: over time, unions have drifted toward top-down management (just like our national and state governments increasingly tell us what to do, rather than the other way around) and professional managers sit in positions of leadership that they seek to protect (just as our national and state governments consist primarily of a class of professional politicians and appointed officials who seek to prolong their positions). But unions are democratic representations of the will of their membership. We all like and support democracy, and democratic processes, don't we?

There is near universal agreement that worker productivity in the United States ... private and public ... is increasing, not decreasing (as it would if parasitic). Even with unions, worker income actually is decreasing. Think how managers would exploit workers if there were no organized opposition to their natural inclination to reduce costs by lowering wages and eliminating benefits. Can you say "third world"?

Finally, are you poorly served by public employees? If so, please provide specific (preferably documented) examples. In fact, why don't you make a list of all the services you receive ... directly and indirectly ... from government employees? I know that probably will be too hard for you to do honestly, since the list will be pretty exhausting. But if you think a person who gives up a higher salary and possibly an easier job offered in the private sector in order to serve an often-time thankless public (as represented by you), then I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about the guy who inherits his daddy's successful business, hires MBAs from Stanford and Harvard to run it for him, and then hedges some of his income in other successful businesses that he breaks up (so they fail) to sell their component parts and inventory to the highest bidder.